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Shakespeare from Betterton to Irving (1920)
Shakespeare from Betterton to Irving - 1920 Author:George Clinton Densmore Odell Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER XIX THE PLAYS; THE ACTIVITIES OF KEMBLE JOHN KEMBLE AND THOMAS HULL From 1788, when he became acting director of the stage at Drury Lane, until 18... more »17, when he retired, laden with honours, from public life, John Kemble is to be reckoned with as the leading man in English theatricals, the brains, as Mrs. Siddons was the heart, of the machine. From that date, his stage adaptations dominated, and set the pace for other producers; furthermore, he passed on to the next age, that of Kean, the versions it was, in great part, to employ. Hereafter, in the present chapter, therefore, we shall deal largely with his attempts to make Shakespeare palatable to his audiences. Before we come to him, however, we must pause for a moment to introduce Thomas Hull, actor, writer, and general utility man at Covent Garden. His adaptation of The Winter's Tale, as printed in Bell's Shakespeare, we have already examined; his Comedy of Errors, brought out at Covent Garden on January 22, 1779, was destined to have considerable life on the stage. After a few years it was superseded by a three-act version, but when Kemble revived the piece at Covent Garden on January 9, 1808, he availed himself of practically all of Hull's additions and alterations. According to the purpose announced in his preface to the 1793 edition of his work, Hull has sentimentalised the rather brittle mechanism of the original, not only in the fifth act, but in all the scenes involving the Antipholis (as he spells the name) of Syracuse, Luciana and Adriana. He has also strengthened the character of the Dromio of Syracuse, by enlarging at least two scenes to be indicated immediately. All in all, the new matter is considerable in quantity, but its effect on an audience could be seen without the proof of the readiness with wh...« less